Topic: NEW: View Extras (Read 64866 times)

Matt · « **Reply #50 on:** September 22, 2016, 10:32:42 am »

Quote from: StevieRayVaughan on September 22, 2016, 10:27:16 am

Please include "Album Artworks". I have thousands of subfolders with the folder name "Album Artworks" where I store my scanned album booklets. PLZ x 1mil :-)

Coming next build:
Changed: Added the subfolder "Album Artworks" to the View Extras search.

StevieRayVaughan · « **Reply #51 on:** September 22, 2016, 10:34:17 am »

Quote from: Matt on August 30, 2016, 11:33:03 am

Coming next build:
Changed: Sidecar searching for the "View Extras" menu also looks in subfolders called "Extras" or "Scans".

Just let us know if there are other common subfolder names.

Please include "Album Artworks". I have thousands of subfolders with the folder name "Album Artworks" where I store my scanned album booklets. PLZ x 1mil :-)

DangerJP · « **Reply #52 on:** September 22, 2016, 05:28:49 pm »

Hi,

Could you add ''(artwork)'' too ?

Thanks !

kstuart · « **Reply #53 on:** September 22, 2016, 08:45:10 pm »

Quote from: StevieRayVaughan on September 22, 2016, 10:27:16 am

Please include "Album Artworks". I have thousands of subfolders with the folder name "Album Artworks" where I store my scanned album booklets. PLZ x 1mil :-)

I have to say that I doubt there is anyone else in the world who has chosen "Album Artworks" as the name of a folder.

There is a great free program called "Bulk Rename" and you can use that to rename all instances on your disk of "Album Artworks" to one of the strings supported by MC22.

Having said that, this should be a user-specified field, exactly like "a, an, the" articles is a user-specifield field (and the same code could be repurposed).

Another possbility in the code would be to use any folder whose name contained the strings already mentioned ("scan", "artwork", etc.)

DangerJP · « **Reply #54 on:** October 21, 2016, 07:50:45 am »

Quote from: kstuart on September 22, 2016, 08:45:10 pm

Having said that, this should be a user-specified field, exactly like "a, an, the" articles is a user-specifield field (and the same code could be repurposed).

Any chance for this suggestion to be implemented ?

Thanks !

P.S. It seems that JRemote already does something similar with the "Asset" feature.

Harroun4 · « **Reply #55 on:** October 22, 2016, 07:54:40 pm »

This looks interesting, but perhaps a little awkward to use generally. What about the concept of making the displayed artwork active, so a click on it brings up the alternative artwork.

I may be spoiled, when I built my own program on Crestron system, I had the display picture active and a tap on it showed the back side. Sort of intuitive perhaps. Collection.com does this for their artwork.

Harroun

DJLegba · « **Reply #56 on:** October 24, 2016, 06:05:15 pm »

I'm enjoying this feature. Could you add it to the context menu when right-clicking the album cover in the Player view?

blgentry · « **Reply #57 on:** October 25, 2016, 08:20:54 am »

^ That's a great idea. For me, the whole reason to use View Extras is to get info on the currently playing album. Linking it with the Playing Now context menu is a great way to access it.

Brian.

Matt · « **Reply #58 on:** October 25, 2016, 08:24:27 am »

I'm a little confused because the "View Extras" menu does show up if you right-click a file in Playing Now.

So what are you talking about?

blgentry · « **Reply #59 on:** October 25, 2016, 08:31:11 am »

He (we) mean the context menu that comes up when you right click on the Cover Art display in Playing Now. The one that has Cover Art Scale, and Cover Art Style submenus on it. View Extras would be really cool to have as one of the top level menu items there.

Brian.

Harroun4 · « **Reply #60 on:** October 25, 2016, 05:15:11 pm »

How about making an addition to the ripping CD menues to scan and store the back side of the artwork in the proper place. Doing this sort of thing later is big pain in the back side. Something I may be stuck with, I have loaded all my previous scanned artwork manually when ripping the CD's. Now that there is way for showing the back side, I have to go back over 5000 bits of artwork and store in the right place. Ugh!!!

Harroun

zxsix · « **Reply #61 on:** October 26, 2016, 07:08:58 pm »

Could this be used to play movie trailers?
M:\media\movies\movietitle\movietitle.mkv
M:\media\movies\movietitle\movietitle_trailer.mkv

Rightclick on movietitle.mkv would allow click and watch trailer?
This would be next best thing if we can't click on fields containing URLs in theater view.

If so, please make this possible from theater view when a specific movie's info page is displayed.

Matt · « **Reply #62 on:** October 27, 2016, 08:33:21 am »

That video sidecar / trailer one seems a little tricky. If a video showed every video next to it, using the "View Extras" for a home video sitting in a folder with lots of other videos would just be a total mess.

I suppose it could only find videos that end with _trailer or something but then it's so special cased it's almost worthless.

Thoughts?

zxsix · « **Reply #63 on:** October 27, 2016, 09:53:28 am »

I agree. I'd bet many people have a folder with dozens of videos and not a separate subfolder for each movie.
I'd rather not store trailers on hard drive. Clickable URL fields in theater view that would play trailer immediately if a youtube url or bring up webpage if imdb url would be my preferred change.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #64 on:** October 27, 2016, 06:58:28 pm »

Without thinking through all the implications, I think the View Extras functionality would work better if it only showed files that began with the same name.

So a movie such as "The Seven Heros.mkv" (or AVI, MP4, JTV, etc.) in a folder full of movies, would only show files named "The Seven Heros*.*"
i.e.
"The Seven Heros_Poster.jpg"
"The Seven Heros_backstory.pdf"
"The Seven Heros_trailer.mp4"
"The Seven Heros_trailer2.avi"
etc.

I think that would fix some of the earlier problems mentioned, but would make some special cases for audio with "folder.jpg" files and such. You could also just specify that MC should search the folder and all subfolders of the folder the media file is in, probably just one level down for speed reasons, and you wouldn't need all the special case subfolder searching, such as "Extras", "Album Artworks", "Scans", "Artwork", etc. Then anybody could add any subfolder they wished to, and as long as the Extra files started with the name of the media, they would be shown via the "View Extras" menu.

Then I would like to be able to invoke a Trailer (or two) from within the information display for a movie in Theatre View, either via the top menu, or preferably via clicking OK on an info field. Trailers would be imported into MC like other videos, and I would exclude them from the Movie view, but would also create a view of just Trailers, to browse through, or just as a "quick fix" of entertainment. Some trailers are very entertaining, and I could imagine watching a sequence of, say, Marvel Trailers instead of watching a whole movie.

I have too many directories with multiple movies in them for View Extras to be useful at the moment, home movies being a specific example, but a bunch of others as well. I am cleaning them all up and moving each video to its own directory progressively, but that is going to take some time. Plus I probably won't do that for home movies. They sit in a directory based on category.

Of course if the above was implemented, then the RM&CF function would have to, optionally, rename all Extras files, at least the first part of them. It is a challenge, isn't it.

ssands · « **Reply #65 on:** October 28, 2016, 12:23:22 pm »

Quote from: RoderickGI on October 27, 2016, 06:58:28 pm

Without thinking through all the implications, I think the View Extras functionality would work better if it only showed files that began with the same name.

This wouldn't work for me. I really like the "View Extras" capability, as I often have scans of inserts in a directory. I don't always name them the same way, for a variety of reasons, e.g., I don't want to keep repeating a long title name that in effect makes it harder to find things. So, sometimes, it's just "booklet.pdf" or "The Story of...". I use this a lot for audio, not at all for video.

audunth · « **Reply #66 on:** November 11, 2016, 12:43:43 pm »

I've been looking for a way to quickly play a trailer for a movie for years. I've tried placing the trailer in the same folder as the video, and also in an "Extras" sub-folder. The trailer has the exact same name as the video file, except a .mp4 extension instead of an .mkv extension. What am I doing wrong?

Negasonic · « **Reply #67 on:** December 07, 2016, 05:50:54 am »

Thanks for this feature. This is something I've wanted for a long time

It works great as long as you have the dedicated folder with "extras" in the same folder as the music files. For me (and I suspect a lot of other users) there is a problem when you have multi disc albums and the tracks are sorted into separate folders.

So for a 2-disc album I have 3 folders:

CD1
CD2
covers

In this case I won't be able to see the pictures in the "covers" folder since that folder is not together with the tracks.

I can of course change this if I move and bundle all tracks together into one folder, but wanted to check first if there is any other solution. Would it be possible to have the program check a step up in the folder tree for a folder with the appropriate name?

Matt · « **Reply #68 on:** December 07, 2016, 06:52:08 am »

We could possibly add ..\ to the list of subfolders to search so that we'd search the path above the current file.

Would that do what you wanted?

I'm trying to think if there are any gotchas to that, but I haven't really thought of any.

Matt · « **Reply #69 on:** December 07, 2016, 06:59:51 am »

Jim says you have it like this:

Parent folder
Artist folder
Album 1
Album 2
Cover

So then my idea wouldn't work since that would only search the artist folder.

Is that how you have files structured?

Negasonic · « **Reply #70 on:** December 07, 2016, 08:00:40 am »

This is my folder structure (for a 2-disc album):

Parent folder
Artist
Album
CD1
CD2
covers

So, I guess the program would have to first go up one step ..\ and then do the usual search for the various "extras-folder" names (covers/cover art/artwork etc etc).

Vectra · « **Reply #71 on:** December 23, 2016, 06:59:11 pm »

I am not able to get the feature to work. What am I doing wrong? Seems on need to upgrade to MC22 on server and not just client.

My PC runs J River 22 and accesses the J River 21 Library on my music server on home LAN. Do I need MC22 on the server, too? Perhaps that is the issue.

Folder structure:

Artist
Album, Disc 1
track 1.flac
track N.flac
backcover.jpg
cover.jpg
disc.jpg
pg1.jpg
Album, Disc 2
track 1. flac

Some albums use:

Artist

Album
SACD Stereo
track1.dsf
SACD Multi-Channel
track2.dsf
Art
cover.png
disc.png
The above seems to have the same 2 CD folder issue as prior post but I don't have as many in this structure.

I also use .PNG files. Will that file type work?

I can only view the cover art which I have assigned to the albums and J River stores those pics somewhere else.

I love this feature on FOOBAR 2000...just click the cover to sequence through pics.

rossp · « **Reply #72 on:** February 02, 2017, 04:23:10 am »

Quote from: Vectra on December 23, 2016, 06:59:11 pm

My PC runs J River 22 and accesses the J River 21 Library on my music server on home LAN. Do I need MC22 on the server, too? Perhaps that is the issue.

Yes you will have to have MC22 on the server as this is a new MC22 feature. Get the latest version and install on the server and upgrade your client.

Get it from the link below.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,109099.0.html

On your server after the upgrade make sure you disable the MC21 server startup by going through the GUI to
Tools/Options/Startup/Windows Startup
and select Nothing

Ross

Negasonic · « **Reply #73 on:** February 09, 2017, 07:12:52 pm »

Quote from: blgentry on October 25, 2016, 08:31:11 am

He (we) mean the context menu that comes up when you right click on the Cover Art display in Playing Now. The one that has Cover Art Scale, and Cover Art Style submenus on it. View Extras would be really cool to have as one of the top level menu items there.

Brian.

Agree with this. It's how I envisioned this would work if the option to view additional images associated with an album was implemented. Since this menu was (before "View Extras" was added) the main way to "tinker" with and view the cover art, it would make sense to add the "View Extras" to it.

Also... how it works now is that when you double click on the cover art (in Playing Now) it will display the cover art in full screen. It would be great if it would also work the same way as clicking "View Extras", so when you double click the cover art, you could also view all the images (the extras) and not only the dedicated cover art file.

About the feature itself: It's currently a bit restricted in the way that it forces users to have the extra material (images, PDF's etc) sorted in a specific way, which is a bit different from how Media Center otherwise works, where you can basically dump and scatter your files anywhere and the program will find them through certain set ups and pointers. Cover art itself don't have to be in the same folder as the tracks, for instance. You can use the "Add From File..." command which opens up a window where you can browse through your computer for the desired file. Would it be possible to have something similar for extras? "Add Extras From Files" for instance, which in this case would function in the same way, but you could select multiple files (wherever they are located)?

mattlovell · « **Reply #74 on:** April 02, 2017, 10:27:13 am »

Would it be possible for the "View Extras" menu to also list any document files (specifically, *.rtf) found in the same folder (or recursively) as a music file?

mattlovell · « **Reply #75 on:** April 02, 2017, 10:28:58 am »

Quote from: mattlovell on April 02, 2017, 10:27:13 am

Would it be possible for the "View Extras" menu to also list any document files (specifically, *.rtf) found in the same folder (or recursively) as a music file?

Oh, I should also mention is that what I'm really angling for is for JRemote to then list the RTF file as well, being able to kick off a viewer on the iPad to read such files.

Thanks for pondering it.

Cryptographer · « **Reply #76 on:** April 03, 2017, 02:53:16 am »

Audio:
For lots of music album folders I have extra booklet scans zipped in a file named artwork.zip (to avoid so many file fragments on the disc).
Would it be possible to support zip archives for the artwork?

Video:
Inside a MyBlockbuster sub-folder for a MyBlockbuster.2016.1080p.mkv (having MyBlockbuster (2016) in the mkv field file title) there are sometimes extra files like MyBlockbuster_making of.2016.1080p.mkv and MyBlockbuster_inverview with the producer.2016.1080p.mkv.

For now I enter MyBlockbuster into the series field and have made an entry series under Theater View -> Videos -> Movies -> Name. Not perfect, but it works as long as the series field is filled with the sub-folder name for all movies. BTW, it would be great if the series field could be pre-filled with the sub-folder name by default.

Matt · « **Reply #77 on:** April 03, 2017, 07:03:16 am »

Quote from: mattlovell on April 02, 2017, 10:27:13 am

Would it be possible for the "View Extras" menu to also list any document files (specifically, *.rtf) found in the same folder (or recursively) as a music file?

Next build:
Changed: Added RTF to the list of extensions the View Extras menu searches for.

mattlovell · « **Reply #78 on:** April 03, 2017, 02:35:36 pm »

Quote from: Matt on April 03, 2017, 07:03:16 am

Changed: Added RTF to the list of extensions the View Extras menu searches for.

Great!

Thanks for such a fast response,
Matt

t42 · « **Reply #79 on:** April 26, 2017, 11:09:09 am »

Can this feature be expanded to include extra material from a DVD (e.g. 'making of' documentaries)? I have these in an 'Extras' subfolder, so the thumbnail images are picked up when I click View Extras, but not the actual video files (mkv).
More generally, an elegant way of handling this content in standard and theatre views would be amazing (I'm currently experimenting with glynor's method of tagging extra content).

Matt · « **Reply #80 on:** April 27, 2017, 06:07:56 am »

Quote from: t42 on April 26, 2017, 11:09:09 am

Can this feature be expanded to include extra material from a DVD (e.g. 'making of' documentaries)? I have these in an 'Extras' subfolder, so the thumbnail images are picked up when I click View Extras, but not the actual video files (mkv).
More generally, an elegant way of handling this content in standard and theatre views would be amazing (I'm currently experimenting with glynor's method of tagging extra content).

I'm not sure how showing videos when you right-click a video would work. Because for example I have a pile of movies sitting next to each other on the hard drive. If they all started showing up in the View Extras menu, it would be kind of overwhelming!

If you have some clever idea, please share.

Thanks.

Matt · « **Reply #81 on:** May 01, 2017, 09:38:21 am »

Quote from: Cryptographer on April 03, 2017, 02:53:16 am

For lots of music album folders I have extra booklet scans zipped in a file named artwork.zip (to avoid so many file fragments on the disc).
Would it be possible to support zip archives for the artwork?

Coming next build:
NEW: The View extras menu looks for a zip file named "Artwork.zip" and shows the artwork in the zip file if it exists.

blgentry · « **Reply #82 on:** May 01, 2017, 02:15:41 pm »

I like Cryptographer's idea (from the other thread) of showing the Extras as Theater View background images while songs from that album are playing in Theater View mode.

Anyone else like that idea?

Brian.

rwwear · « **Reply #83 on:** May 01, 2017, 10:00:52 pm »

How can I burn high resolution audio files to a DVD or Blu-ray disc for playback in a Blu-ray or DVD player?

JimH · « **Reply #84 on:** May 02, 2017, 06:13:33 am »

Try burning a Data disc instead of an Audio disc. The player might work with it.

rwwear · « **Reply #85 on:** May 03, 2017, 03:07:10 pm »

I tried that. My Oppo wouldn't play it. There should be a way to do it as a video disc but it won't let me burn music files to DVD video. Maybe 23 will add this feature.

t42 · « **Reply #86 on:** May 05, 2017, 07:30:18 am »

Quote from: Matt on April 27, 2017, 06:07:56 am

Quote from: t42 on April 26, 2017, 11:09:09 am
Can this feature be expanded to include extra material from a DVD (e.g. 'making of' documentaries)? I have these in an 'Extras' subfolder, so the thumbnail images are picked up when I click View Extras, but not the actual video files (mkv).
More generally, an elegant way of handling this content in standard and theatre views would be amazing (I'm currently experimenting with glynor's method of tagging extra content).

I'm not sure how showing videos when you right-click a video would work. Because for example I have a pile of movies sitting next to each other on the hard drive. If they all started showing up in the View Extras menu, it would be kind of overwhelming!

If you have some clever idea, please share.

Thanks.

I'll admit I was purely thinking about my own use case (primarily watching TV/Movies in Theatre View) and folder structure, in which each movie resides in its own folder and any bonus features live in an Extras subfolder within each movie folder. Anything in the Extras folder could appear in the View Extras list (and ideally an Extras tab for the selected Movie in Theatre View).
I run MC on another PC for listening to music and can appreciate the new functionality in that setting, so I'm not ungrateful of View Extras in its current guise! But as has already been discussed in this thread, it seems some refinement is required to work as some people would like/expect for different types of media (and in the different views).

Thinking about this some more, tagging may be a better way to populate the View Extras list, rather than looking at special Extras/Scans folders. Maybe an appropriate tag exists already, but a new [Extras Parent] tag could be filled with the [Name] of the 'parent' movie/album to which the extra content relates. Items could be automatically tagged if they reside in an Extras subfolder, thus retaining the existing functionality.

Herwet · « **Reply #87 on:** May 08, 2017, 01:54:58 pm »

In the Artist, Album and Genre columns there are this Play symbol to the left of the text which makes the view switch to "3D Almbums" view.

Question: Is there a way to not see this Play-button and use the space for more text instead?
(It would be a good improvement for me)

David Sydney · « **Reply #88 on:** May 26, 2017, 07:32:25 pm »

Sorry I'm losing track now. I would like to standardise my folders before I create too many more. Can you summarise the list of folder names that work with View Extras again. There has been so many increments along the way?

David

stricko · « **Reply #89 on:** June 04, 2017, 11:49:09 pm »

Quote from: blgentry on May 01, 2017, 02:15:41 pm

I like Cryptographer's idea (from the other thread) of showing the Extras as Theater View background images while songs from that album are playing in Theater View mode.

Anyone else like that idea?

Brian.

Definitely. It get my vote

pinky0328 · « **Reply #90 on:** June 11, 2017, 07:42:45 am »

Quote from: RoderickGI on August 30, 2016, 09:02:30 pm

Yeah, I have been known to accidently drop a whole "Movies to be sorted" directory into one specific movie directory and not notice for a while. That would have made everything in the "Movies to be sorted" directory into Extras!

The first thing I noticed was that existing Cover Art sitting next to an audio file is included in the "Extras". That's okay, but I thought it might only show files not already shown as Cover Art. i.e. Just the extra files. That would make the functionality a bit messy though.
It would be nice if MC had some indication that there were extra files available. Perhaps something like the little Play icon shown against each file change color, or had a fine colored line drawn around the edge. Something that doesn't take extra space preferably. But if existing Cover Art is shown as Extras, all files with Cover Art would have the indicator, making it meaningless.
The next thing I noticed was that a MC22.0.22 Client wouldn't show Extras from a MC22.0.21 Server. Upgrading the MC Server didn't change this; there was no "View Extras" item on the right click menu of the MC Client.

Hi

does anybody know if point 3 above has been solved (reading Extras from Client)?
For me Server works fine with Extras but I can not read from client with MC22.0.108 on both Server and Client.
I have also uninstalled previous versions of MC on Server and Client. Anything else I need to check?

pinky0328 · « **Reply #91 on:** June 20, 2017, 02:19:24 pm »

Quote from: pinky0328 on June 11, 2017, 07:42:45 am

Hi

does anybody know if point 3 above has been solved (reading Extras from Client)?
For me Server works fine with Extras but I can not read from client with MC22.0.108 on both Server and Client.
I have also uninstalled previous versions of MC on Server and Client. Anything else I need to check?

Could anyone help?

David Sydney · « **Reply #92 on:** July 06, 2017, 04:19:40 pm »

Answer is very logical - If you are running v.21 on the server, it does not have the functionality for viewing extras. The feature was added somewhere around 22.0.22. Since the server is controlling the traffic no matter what client you use eg. another install, gizmo etc, your version 21 will not know what to do when you ask to view extras. If you want to see the Extras, your server version needs to be above 22.0.22.

DS

Sesam · « **Reply #93 on:** September 19, 2017, 10:46:01 am »

I just tried what would happen if I zipped a bunch of zip files (containing jpg images) into a large artwork.zip. It didn't go well, the right-click menu refuses to pop-up/and MC freezes for a couple of seconds. Not that I would have any use for that working, just one of my experiments trying to set the world on fire

pinky0328 · « **Reply #94 on:** October 13, 2018, 11:10:23 am »

I am really enjoying this feature a lot. I have spent a lot of time trying to get it to work on a MC client. Before I spend more time could someone confirm that it actually works to view extras on a MC client? I am currently on version 23.0.104 on both server and client.

pinky0328 · « **Reply #95 on:** October 20, 2018, 02:55:56 am »

Quote from: pinky0328 on October 13, 2018, 11:10:23 am

I am really enjoying this feature a lot. I have spent a lot of time trying to get it to work on a MC client. Before I spend more time could someone confirm that it actually works to view extras on a MC client? I am currently on version 23.0.104 on both server and client.

Bump.

DJLegba · « **Reply #96 on:** October 20, 2018, 08:40:20 am »

Quote from: pinky0328 on October 13, 2018, 11:10:23 am

I am really enjoying this feature a lot. I have spent a lot of time trying to get it to work on a MC client. Before I spend more time could someone confirm that it actually works to view extras on a MC client? I am currently on version 23.0.104 on both server and client.

I don't know if it works on a Media Center client, but it does work on JRemote (iOS version only) and MO 4Media (Android).

pinky0328 · « **Reply #97 on:** October 21, 2018, 09:15:47 am »

Yes I have MO 4media working fine but question is if it works on an MC client... Surely someone must know?

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